Field scale trial of fibre-reinforced ballast
Field scale trial of fibre-reinforced ballast
Rail infrastructure companies spend a substantial proportion of their operating budget on track maintenance and renewal. This could be reduced by extending the life and/or the maintenance interval of ballasted track and minimizing service disruption. A possible means to achieve this is with a fibre-reinforced ballast. Fibre-reinforced ballast is created by randomly introducing fibres to the granular matrix. If appropriately sized, these fibres may be held between grains and develop tensions that increase the effective confining pressure on the assembly. Previous laboratory research has shown that the addition of specific types, quantities and dimensions of fibres can increase the peak strength and reduce settlements of railway ballast. Based on laboratory test results, a field trial has been carried out at a site on a UK mass transit railway. The site was due for trackbed renewal which offered the opportunity to reinforce the replacement ballast with fibres consisting of polyethylene strips 300 mm × 25 mm × 0.5 mm at a concentration of 670 fibres per tonne of a standard ballast gradation. At the trial site, fibre-reinforced ballast was placed along a 48 m length. A further length was renewed with unreinforced ballast as a control. Following the installation, measurements of dynamic track movements as trains pass using a high-speed camera and digital image correlation were carried out on two visits. This paper presents an evaluation of the post-installation monitoring data. Results confirm that the fibre-reinforced ballast performs at least as well as the control section of track.
Ballast, Fibres, Maintenance
503-513
Watson, Geoff
a7b86a0a-9a2c-44d2-99ed-a6c02b2a356d
Ferro, Edgar
0791b4e9-80fd-4472-9a76-28c060ff9972
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Milne, David
0c7c69d1-8fd7-4899-9afb-7307b80557fe
White, Tristan Rees
852278dd-f628-4d98-a03a-a34fea8c75d6
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
2022
Watson, Geoff
a7b86a0a-9a2c-44d2-99ed-a6c02b2a356d
Ferro, Edgar
0791b4e9-80fd-4472-9a76-28c060ff9972
Le Pen, Louis
4a38e256-d113-4bba-b0d4-32d41995928a
Milne, David
0c7c69d1-8fd7-4899-9afb-7307b80557fe
White, Tristan Rees
852278dd-f628-4d98-a03a-a34fea8c75d6
Powrie, William
600c3f02-00f8-4486-ae4b-b4fc8ec77c3c
Watson, Geoff, Ferro, Edgar, Le Pen, Louis, Milne, David, White, Tristan Rees and Powrie, William
(2022)
Field scale trial of fibre-reinforced ballast.
Tutumluer, Erol, Nazarian, Soheil, Al-Qadi, Imad and Qamhia, Issam I.A.
(eds.)
In Advances in Transportation Geotechnics IV - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics.
vol. 164,
Springer Cham.
.
(doi:10.1007/978-3-030-77230-7_38).
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
Rail infrastructure companies spend a substantial proportion of their operating budget on track maintenance and renewal. This could be reduced by extending the life and/or the maintenance interval of ballasted track and minimizing service disruption. A possible means to achieve this is with a fibre-reinforced ballast. Fibre-reinforced ballast is created by randomly introducing fibres to the granular matrix. If appropriately sized, these fibres may be held between grains and develop tensions that increase the effective confining pressure on the assembly. Previous laboratory research has shown that the addition of specific types, quantities and dimensions of fibres can increase the peak strength and reduce settlements of railway ballast. Based on laboratory test results, a field trial has been carried out at a site on a UK mass transit railway. The site was due for trackbed renewal which offered the opportunity to reinforce the replacement ballast with fibres consisting of polyethylene strips 300 mm × 25 mm × 0.5 mm at a concentration of 670 fibres per tonne of a standard ballast gradation. At the trial site, fibre-reinforced ballast was placed along a 48 m length. A further length was renewed with unreinforced ballast as a control. Following the installation, measurements of dynamic track movements as trains pass using a high-speed camera and digital image correlation were carried out on two visits. This paper presents an evaluation of the post-installation monitoring data. Results confirm that the fibre-reinforced ballast performs at least as well as the control section of track.
This record has no associated files available for download.
More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 31 August 2021
Published date: 2022
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Acknowledgements The authors are grateful for the financial support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the programme grant Track to the Future (EP/M025276/1) and Network Rail through the University Research Partnership in Future Infrastructure Systems. The authors are also grateful for the support of the infrastructure owner, Transport for London (TfL), particularly Stephen Barber, for, enabling the trials to take place.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Venue - Dates:
4th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics, ICTG 2021, , Chicago, United States, 2021-05-23 - 2021-05-26
Keywords:
Ballast, Fibres, Maintenance
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 456149
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/456149
ISSN: 2366-2557
PURE UUID: ef283a1d-11ba-4ca4-9d39-4ee350df4950
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 26 Apr 2022 15:06
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:06
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Edgar Ferro
Author:
David Milne
Editor:
Erol Tutumluer
Editor:
Soheil Nazarian
Editor:
Imad Al-Qadi
Editor:
Issam I.A. Qamhia
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics